Apple ordered to make public climbdown over Galaxy Tab claims

Emma Woollacott, 19th July 2012

Apple's been ordered to run ads in major newspapers in the UK admitting that Samsung didn't copy the iPad.

The order was made by Judge Colin Birss yesterday after Apple's response to his ruling a week earlier that Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10 didn't infringe Apple's design patents.

After that decision, Apple released a statement.

"It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging," said Apple.

"This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

Well, no judge likes to have his verdict disrespected like that, and Birss certainly has form when it comes to ritual humiliation. When making his original ruling, he said the reason Samsung's device couldn't be confused with the iPad was its 'almost insubstantial' thinness, and fiddly detail on the back.

However, in the US, district judge Lucy Koh has ruled against Samsung in its attempt to cite comments from Steven Jobs that it says show the extent of Apple's 'bias' and 'improper motives.

It wanted to cite the notorious comment made to Walter Isaccson, who was writing Jobs' biography: "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong, I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."